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TRANSPLANTING SPIDER PLANTS DURING THE WAR WITH IRAQ
2008-07-08 08:00:00
by Susan Roney-O’BrienPot-bound, the plant wants dividing.I dump it out, try to pull snarled roots apart.At first, people I’d never met were dying, mouthspacked with sand. Osama had resurfaced.If, finally we cut him down, I thought,cells will divide, regroup, swell againlike those within my co-worker’s bodythat rounded out her belly like a childsplit, then balled to kill her.I cut the root ball into sections,seat each cutting, tuck them in with earth.Yesterday the boy next door came home in a box.His flag-draped coffin filled the undertaker’s hall.I place the repotted spiders on the windowsilland hope they will survive.Susan Roney-O’Brien teaches, reads for The Worcester Review and writes. Her work has appeared in Yankee, Prairie Schooner, Diner, Concrete Wolf, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, Margin, Rock and Sling and other magazines. She has won the Worcester County Poetry Association Contest, the William and Kingman Page Poetry Book Award for her ...
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HALF-HAPPY WITH INDIA TURNING INTO A TRILLION DOLLAR ECONOMY
2008-07-06 08:00:00
by Vivek SharmaWhen half of my nation sleepswith half-filled bellies, under the half-roofs,with half-hopes of a mouthful tomorrow,when half of my nation grows up with half-rightsto education and employment,with half-health produces babies, with a half-heartchokes before the stoves that burn wood,and cook half-water curries made with half-salt,when half-length men walk the streetshalf-naked, willing to work for half-wages,half-grown women slip into beds at half-price,when half-sane leaders pocket half-funds,and divide the nation into halves that fight,(haves and not-haves all half-fooled)when half-castes organize into brigands,and seek half-reservation for their half-intellect,when half of the news is of rapes, riots, extortions,half-nation worries about Naxalists, Maoists, terrorists,half-resolved cases haunt the courts,where victims of the crime wait their half-livesfor half-compensations,when half-history is distorted or concocted,sacrifices of men like Gandhi half-known, half-res...
More About: Economy , India , Dollar , Happy , Half

HISTORY ON TRIAL
2008-07-04 08:00:00
by HL“The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” a quote attributed to Mark TwainIn a rhyme of history, the war tested TiberiusWaits for his predecessor to pass.Caligula came first this time.The madman chose the warriorWhose time now pastCan only chant the hollow platitude,VICTORY with HONOR.While the Senate fakes loyaltyTo save their phony asses,Their fool carries the message,But the real disaster waits in secrecy.Basking in a war turned disaster,Not German, but all the verbsAdded like historical after thoughtsSay, the emperor is irrational,The empire is doomed.Yet there is no victory in treason,No savior in divination.All the enemy deaths and bloodCannot reverse the tragic patternThe modern Rome didn’t get backwardsEnough, to forswear a different ending.HL is a computer-nerd bicyclist who cranks out poetry as he rides along prairie grass and gravel roads. He says, "War is not the Answer / Ride a Bicycle," and more at his HL link here and in the left ...
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NEW YORK MAN ACCUSED OF HIDING IN WOMAN'S COUCH
2008-07-02 08:00:00
by Amy HolmanLet me be your dust mite,a fetish carvedof turquoise and gut-wound tight.Let me be your dust mitebeneath the weight of you, my rite, your fright,my fetish; I'm starved.Let me be your dust mite,a fetish carvedinto down and innerspring.Let me be yourtightly wound dinner flinginto, down and inner—springme with all your might, sinew, curve, and swing.I am seeking when I'm hiding, orinto down and innerspring,let me be yourprivate dick--or eyein the sofa spud. I will grow on you.I've cut your moorings, haven't I?Private? Dick or eye,I sight my target, you are mine. Tryescaping, imploring. True,private dick--or eye--in the sofa, spud. I will grow on you.Amy Holman has been playing around with current news and/or headlines for a couple of years, here and there, including publications in Failbetter, Archaeology (online), Unpleasant Event Schedule, Rattapallax, Shade, and soon, on the Red Morning Press web site. She is the author of Wait For Me, I'm Gone, which won the 200...
More About: New York , York , Couch , New-York

GAZA
2008-06-30 08:00:00
by J. R. SoloncheFor this you can blame Olmert.For this you can blame Sharon .For this you can blame Barak.For this you can blame Netanyahu.For this you can blame Peres.For this you can blame Shamir.For this you can blame Begin.For this you can blame Meir.For this you can blame Eshkol.For this you can blame Dayan.For this you can blame Ben Gurion.For this you can blame Atlee.For this you can blame Truman.For this you can blame Balfour.For this you can blame Jacob.For this you can blame Esau.For this you can blame Isaac.For this you can blame Abraham.For this you can blame God.For this you can blame the desert.J.R. Solonche is coauthor (with wife Joan Siegel) of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His poems have appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies since the 1970s. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.____________________________________ __________________
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MISSISSIPPI
2008-06-27 08:00:00
PoeArtry by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin ChinayotemIssIssIppI mighty global warming victim     Four eyes but cannot see      &n bsp;   Beyond questions asked repeatedly over&over    &nbs p;      &nb sp;   Again&again& again but gone answeredMinnesotaproot source Itaska’s icy depths     Ioway too little too late      & nbsp;   Illinoise clamoring for fed-up relief       ;      &nbs p;  Downstream bent on human MissouriWhere NEWS meteorologist Twain meet     Running rampant through ten(se) states       ;    Of emergency declared belonging evacuated     &n bsp;      & nbsp; ...
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70 WORDS WE CAN SAY ON TV
2008-06-26 07:27:00
PUNCH LINES FOR GEORGE CARLINby Earl J. WilcoxHere lies a man of sorrow and mirth,who crafted a joke better than BettyCrocker baked a cake, showed usa heart more often than DaddyWarbucks, and loved the human racedespite believing most of us are notmuch better than Swift’s Yahoos.If somehow reincarnation is possible,one could do worse than return asGeorge Carlin. Wherever he is tonight,can we really imagine he’s at rest?Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he has contributed 35 poems to the New Verse News.____________________________________ ____
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YESTERDAY’S NEWS
2008-06-25 08:00:00
by Scot SiegelSleepless or dream consciousness,Doesn't matter – another twenty thousand troopsDo their second tour of dutyIn less than eighteen monthsOur commanders entrenchedIn the Oval Office are making maps againThey keep the blinds downWhile Generals at the Pentagon shout ordersTo their heirs in the green zoneWho keep pulling the blinds openStraining for a view of the draw down coming...*Meanwhile, the druggist’s eldest son from Spearfish, South Dakota     and the plumber’s lesbian daughter from Mobile , Alabama     and the nurse’s sister from Hollister , California     a nd the valedictorian from Bliss, Idaho     and the veterinarian’s brother from Sandoval , New Mexico     and the failed actress without a permanent address in LA     and the burned-out waitress runaway     and the young rapist wh...
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HEADED FOR A FALL
2008-06-23 08:00:00
by Linda O"ConnellGoing to hell in a hand basket sounds saferthan taking a plunge in the stock market.If the American dollar won’t buy a nickel's worth of product overseas,why am I paying sky high prices for milk and bread?And what's with the petro places playing pokerwith my tens cents per gallon either way?Day, after day, after day.I'm ready to stash my cash in a mason jar,which I thinkis better by farthan banks on the brink.I used to fear the fatsos at the food buffets playing with my meat,Now it's the Double D branded cows:diseased and dying before we fry 'emthat makes me not want to eat.There's more and more to worry aboutE Coli on my veggies, bacteria in the air,poison in the water,toxins in my plastic ware.Double Dumb's trickle down theoryopened the floodgates,cannibalized the middle class,sent industry and soldiers overseas,as we the people, collectively closed our eyes, shut our mouthsand relinquished personal freedoms in the name of the great old U. S. of A.Today...
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THE SON RISES IN THE WEST
2008-06-22 08:01:00
by Gerard SarnatHomeless hubbub 'cross from posh mall,beside railroad tracks, sad cold facts:a bold disheveled unleveled ghostly street Jesus-- shoulder straggly beard and hair,bare feet on shards and concrete --guards courage cart lifted from Safeway(full of garbage). Remote unto himselfin ragged rank raincoat,hands grasping storm soggy Bible,he gestures absurdly to birds, preaches at trees,celebrates amidst the leaves and shit,screeches to no one in turded Stygian grottoesbehind chic Silicon Valley restaurantsbeyond a heater liberated from patios aboveto the center of the center where bored druggedlibeled disabled unhoused unlucky sick mengather to suck luke coffee,rejoice in day-old discarded raspberry tarts,some awaiting deliverance -- others the bus.In hole-y dissolute jeans, old hiking boots,ill-fitting ill-suited navy blue parka,gnarly mittens, ratty ski maskpulled over nose and ears;I wander the parking lotfrom here to there then back again,black bag grasped tight (clean s...
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IN THE ARMY NOW
2008-06-21 09:00:00
by Becky HarblinThe longest day,the most light Sun willgive us,todaya long shadow madefor long hoursby a tree whose very barkslowly peels awayholding,just barely,loose,and then it fliesin the wind,awayfrom the tree, a parentreluctantto send a child off tolife.The longest day,imagining the childon this solstice, and the stormraging in the distanceand you can’t do,you can not doanything but watchit rageand your child has peeledloose and is freeto dowhatsoldiers do.Becky Harblin is a sculptor who works in concrete and soapstone and also writes daily haiku and senryu. Each morning starts with these meditative 'in-the-moment' poems. Becky lives on a farm with sheep in upstate New York. After years of working in Manhattan she moved to the more pastoral setting and found new inspirations and new challenges. Her poetry has been published on New Verse News, and North Country Literary Journal. You may also view her poems at her Web site.____________________________________ ____
More About: Army

HER DUE
2008-06-20 09:07:00
by Chris FreifeldIf she was backed into a corner,it was a lofty one.I heard the rafters ringingwhen she announced her race was run.My heart was with the harridanswhose time is yet to come. The nagswho pulled a stubborn plow throughstone embedded fields. How fertileis the hard earth now, turningwith the seasons, knowingwhen to yield. Chris Freifeld lives in the U.S.A. where sanity doesn't grow on trees.___________________________________ ___________________

REMEMBERING HAWKEYE
2008-06-19 09:00:00
by Karen Garrisonwar is hellthe swamp is holy refuge from hellwar is here againnot happy daystake me to your swampdrown me in dusty dry ginyour eyes pierce the painwith one liners that Groucho would’ve surelyloved to stealhad he gone to your waryou did him proudnow they go again and againand you aren’t hereuntil late night, in a darkened roomI listen to your caustic rage androllicking sarcasm,and taste your tears streamingdown my frightened lipsI need a family that loves, criesand holds on, that operateson each other’s wounds like yours didbut we are a house dividedI need a man who’s eyes take hold with truthno matter how hard it is to tell,melt me with their sincerityand hold me fixed by their honestybecause he cares so about the casualtiesand homeit came through the situationtime and againyou caredyou spoke outwith courage against a quagmireand now your words are ineternal rerunhere hereI need your flirtingsmiling, prankishinnocent sweetnessa plea for comfort andfleeting ...
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JADED
2008-06-18 10:31:00
by Megan Anne MetzelaarThe plastic lady implores me to careThrough the camera,Mournful imitations seep into my living room,Belying adrenaline rushing her veins,Purple like mine, butHidden beneath alabaster skin,A face pulled tight.Stories like these bought designer shoes,Expensive leather purses,Lunch at Tavern on Green.Voice lifting to the next octave,She tells about the old man,Paralyzed in the street, a hit and run,Onlookers contemplating too longWhether to step an inch closer.They did not step closer.Warning: video is disturbing.Tape rolls, her feigned sighs theAccompaniment, contrived musicLearned through years of practice.The voyeur crowd could be her relatives,A family of frozen white-ice peopleFar removed from the nobler instincts.She secretly likes them, The Plastics,No matter what she says,And would have stood among themOn the sidewalk,Looking at the crumpled manThrough the crowd of her familiars,Wondering who would beHer first interview.Megan Anne Metzelaar rescues waywar...
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LINKING WORDS
2008-06-17 08:00:00
by Deborah Vatcherballistic the cosmos this dreamcomet flaming sun energy crashes headfirstinto Mars its tail smoking disabled and spenton the iraqinvasion.comconfused    ;  perplexed no hypertext to link to onlya domain name for salewhat etymology—did Cicero Latinize veriloquiumthe tangled wordsroots to the visibletreedepending on the sun’s anglethat casts opposing shades of truthdid some untie sense too late     with boots on the groundelements dig into the archeology of meaningreports and Senate committees disputepublished memoirs also refute whatdistortions bent bulletproof facts to fit policylinking Saddam to Al-Qaeda to 9/11spinning the sun around the Earth and the moonDeborah Vatcher is a physician whose practice is currently on hold due to illness. Her poems have appeared in various journals including The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Rio Grande Review, Fetishes, and the online journals Best Poem, and Flutter. Her first collect...
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WHEN THE WATER DISAPPEARERED
2008-06-16 08:33:00
by Joannie Kervran StangelandIt had been going all along,flowing out of pipes and spigotsinto sinks and showers, irrigation ditches,soaking the lawns, the dandelions.Hoses trickled to a drip.Grass dried, and then the dirt.Dishes piled up on the counter,laundry heaped up on the floors.The glasses were full of only air.We drank the air, bought paper plates.The news printed debatesby leading experts in their fields:We were healthy, we were dying,we were melting.We woke up and saw the sunon the curtains, on the oranges,in a square that the cat sprawled across.Our mouths felt dry as dirtand we forgot about any headlinesfrom the capital city.Joannie Kervran Stangeland’s work has most recently appeared in Journal of the American Medical Association and Pontoon. Her first chapbook, A Steady Longing for Flight, won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Her second chapbook, Weathered Steps, was published by Rose Alley Press.___________________________________ ___________________
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FATHER'S DAY
2008-06-15 09:00:00
by Scot Siegel The man hung from a blue-striped tie my mother tugged on Sunday The pressmen could wait, she'd say; then he'd bolt for the door... Hollering four or five; home for dinner he told us... Then we'd wait, and wait... Eight p.m. Chicken rubbery Flies on the rice. City lights blinking through the ink flood... I waited in the street lamp pall I waited with the vagrants Kept vigil by a fire. Waited under the overpass at midnight. Fatherless Waited for the Chevy sound creeping down the alley. The handout: The murmur of my mother greeting him the smell of ink mixed with a strange perfume His hands pulling the cool sheets over my bony body -- Scot Siegel is an urban planner and poet from Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he serves on the Lake Oswego City Planning Commission and the Board of Trustees for the Friends of William Stafford. His first full-length poetry collection Some Weather is forthcoming from Plain View Press in 20...

DUBY@ FEELS @ SENSE OF P@IN
2008-06-15 03:31:00
by Bill Costley"Bush On . . . " The Observer, Sunday, June 15 2008[newspoem]“I feel a sense of painfor those who were tortured by Saddam,by the parentswho watched their daughters raped by Saddam,by those innocent civilians who have been killed byinadvertent allied action,by those who have been bombed by suicide bombers.I feel a sense of pain for death.I feel a sense of pain for the families of ourtroops.“And a responsibility to make surethey understand the sacrifice won't go in vain.They want to know whether or not the President,if he believes it was necessary,whether he is going to see this thing through.Nothing is worse than a politicianmaking decisions based on the latest pollwhen people's lives are at stake.”Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union.___________________________________ _____
More About: Sense

POTENTIAL
2008-06-14 09:53:00
by Helga KidderIn this age of robots and instant gratification,thank God, I still sadden at a golf ballsized skull discovered gardening,shudder at an immature serpentcaught in the rake among dried leaves.It is easily coaxed between rocks inthis blackberry winter and mist rainroses repay with profusion -- a transitionthat lifts the mind off the ground, nosecloser to home and potato soup inside.My mother's day bouquet blooms yellowin a white basket like new age religion --for a little while -- current TV shows,the wilder the better, a step backward.As long as we can stumble or limp or hopon one foot forward, as long as our eyessee promise on the horizon, a light ahead --the way the early hominid, Orrorin Tugenensis,must have whose bones found in Kenyaconfirmed hip and upper leg had begunadapting to walking upright.Helga Kidder lives in the Tennessee hills. She received a BA from the University of Tennessee and an MFA from Vermont College. Her poems have appeared in Snake Nation Rev...

ONE ERA ENDS; ANOTHER CONTINUES
2008-06-13 08:00:00
by Russell LibbyTwelve different gas stations along my drive home,Only one below $4 a gallon, one last day,And there's a huge snapping turtle,Head up, mouth open,Later two box turtles scratching in the roadside sand.On this last day of cheap gas,The eons-old biological clock keeps time by the sun.Russell Libby writes from Three Sisters Farm in Mount Vernon, Maine. His book Balance: A Late Pastoral was published by Blackberry Press in 2007.____________________________________ ________
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DUBY@ RE-T@LKS HIS TUFF T@LK
2008-06-12 08:00:00
by Bill CostleyTaking back his having said "bring it on”Dubya retalks his talkin’ for the re-cord:“That was kind of tough talk, you know,that sent the wrong signal to people. I learntsome lessons about expressin’ myself, maybein a little more sophisticated manner –you know, not 'wanted dead or alive,'that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of theworldit was misinterpreted, & so I learnt from that."Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union.___________________________________ _________

LAWS OF RELATIVITY
2008-06-11 10:27:00
by Gerard SarnatSitbreatheempty out all gravity.Pure white light down the center.Sauna, hot tub, fur family forest home.Organic blueberry granola skimmed milk breakfast...Oh my god what to choose among Hindu Varanasi onthe holiest Ganges or Bodhgaya where the Buddha wasenlightened under the Bodhi Tree or my namesake Sarnathwhere he gave his first sermon in the Deer Park; I alwayswanted to be in the Himalayas' low stress zone, Dharamsalawith the Dalai Lama's exiled refugees - a quick trip up north?Down to cold rainy asphalt homeless center parking lot cornerwhere hypertensive diabetic tobacco-hacking single men standaround under high pressures of real life's mixed blessings.Yesterday okay (sort of), today not so much, on the edge.Day old discarded trans-fatty charity baked goods.Rats gather amid psychotropic noncompliance.Two doctors' appointments blown:-- got rolled late last nightnow catch as catch caneverything's stolenone ankle brokenbum two smokesdentures lostpolice fightme...
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FOREIGNERS
2008-06-10 09:29:00
by David ChorltonWhere are you from? You always have to ask.It hurts not to know. The accent won’t let you rest.Anyone can tell a foreigner by listening. The other countryis buried in every word. You can ask in a tentative voicepretending to be curious as if it really doesn’t matteryou’d just like to know. Or you can emphasise the youto be offensive because you’re not a foreigner. You’re home.You belong. Do you like it here? You ask that too.You only want one answer and if you get anotheryou’re upset. You’re insulted. How insulteddepends on the degree of foreignness. Some foreignerslook like you. They come in small groups. Singles.Married couples. Others come in multiples. They insiston shipping in their culture and unloading itin neighbourhoods that look as if they’d seceded.When you say foreigners these are the ones you meanbecause the others are invisible. One foreigner doesn’t disturb you. One alone doesn’t take a lot of space. A country of onecan be easily i...
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CAN'T STOP THE RAIN
2008-06-09 09:00:00
Burma, June 2008by Barbara A. Taylorin paddy fieldsthe splintered hullsof capsized boatsfloating bodiesin the debrisone cup of riceand rainwaterkeeps them alivemanna from abroadsacks of grains, wheat, cornguarded in vaultsin famine and floodthe right to eatcan’t stop the rain--from selfish soldiersa diet of frogsBarbara A. Taylor’s haiku and short form poems have appeared on Sketchbook, Shamrock, Stylus, Lynx, Simply Haiku, Three Lights Gallery, Tiny Words, Kokako, Eucalypt, Moonset, Contemporary Haibun, Modern English Tanka, and others, including recent anthologies, Landfall and Atlas Poetica. Her diverse poems with audio are at http://batsword.tripod.com/._____________ _______________________________
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DID I EVER TELL YOU WHAT I -- NOT MY FATHER, BUT I -- DID IN THE WAR?
2008-06-08 08:00:00
by Steve Hellyard SwartzI loved my fatherThe warriorI loved my father, the sailor, the aviatorI loved that my father was big and strong, myFather Who had been to warMy father who never saw the arrowShot from my bowNever saw it comingUntil it hit him in the backMy father who laid on the floorThe arrow in his hands, the arrow now somehow, magically, piercing his frontMy father who cried when I came out from behind my painted treeMy father who cried: You got me!You got me goodAs he tickled me and kissed me and messed up my hairLaterMuch laterWhen we fought about VietnamAnd I no longer would accompany him to stand on Central Avenue to watch the marchers in the Veterans’ Day ParadeWith their little capes and smaller wavesWhen I stood in the barAnd saw him out there, singing God Bless AmericaWith his hand over his heartAnd said to my friend JohnMy father’s as bad as Westmoreland, Johnson, all of themWith blood on their handsLaterMuch later that dayWhen my father and I fought at the kit...

STATE OF THE UNION, MORNING AFTER
2008-05-03 11:00:00
by Steve MyersHe’d come down off the mountain by Vera Cruz,past Kozy Korner and the Jewish Community Center,tracking the doe he’d wounded, and becauseI’d been shoveling all morning, and had hit that rhythmin the early going where the blade cuts down to asphalteasy, I admitted I hadn’t noticed the spatteringover the snowbank. Since September he’d been marking her,he said, when she and her fawns cropped his new azaleas—long story short, a major buttache, a fucking menaceto the neighborhood was how he put it, roadkill waiting to happen, so with my OK—shoutedover his shoulder—he’d cross my property. Reload.An English teacher, Steve Myers’ most recent collection, Memory’s Dog, appeared in Fall 2004 from FootHills Publishing. His poems have appeared in literary journals such as The Dark Horse, Ekphrasis, Paterson Literary Review, and Poetry East, as well as in Common Wealth, an anthology featuring contemporary Pennsylvania poets.___________________________________ __...
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I HAVE LOST MY SENSE OF HUMOR
2008-05-02 12:15:00
by Silvia Brandon PérezI am hoping it is misplacedamong the orphaned socks,in one of the bags in the upstairscloset, or with the bottle lids,in the cookie tin from Francewhich is all that remains from Louis-Marie'svisit; it may be on my gardening table,outdoors with the soil and the shardsof broken pots, awaiting the endof interminable winter,ready to bloom with the azaleasand the phalaenopses,or in the file where my students'hopeful composicionesawait grading. It would not be permanently gone;I misplace but rarely lose things;it has been a faithful companionthrough sleet, accidents,the death of a parent, friends,a betrayal by this or that one,the day I entered the hut in Bahía Kinowhere the women were making hamacas;the small boy was inside in a wheelchair-Mercedita told me they cannot affordthe medical care that might make him better;he sits in the dark and listens to the radio,there are always rancheras playing in the morning,Verónica told me her hermana is workingfor the co...
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MAN BUILDS GUILLOTINE TO KILL HIMSELF
2008-05-01 12:35:00
by Amy HolmanMaybe he suffered from killer migraines. Maybehis neck itched. Maybe he had body issues.Maybe he was guilty over being the executionerin a past life. Maybe 41 is not the new 31. Maybeit was mind over matter.Amy Holman has been playing around with current news and/or headlines for a couple of years, here and there, including publications in Failbetter, Archaeology (online), Unpleasant Event Schedule, Rattapallax, Shade, and soon, on the Red Morning Press web site. She is the author of Wait For Me, I'm Gone, which won the 2004 Dream Horse Press annual chapbook prize. She writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and work freelance as a Literary Consultant out of her tiny apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.________________________________ ________
More About: Kill , Builds

THE SHELLS
2008-04-30 11:57:00
by Karla Linn MerrifieldOn the eve of the war in Iraqshe was contemplating opercula,small doorways of protection for snails-- ocean’s moon snails, slipper snails, alsoaugers & whelks of more intricate shells.On the eve of the war in Iraqshe reminisced about hermit crabsthat tuck their tender hind endsinto any abandoned shell that suits,taking shelter from predators.On the eve of the war in Iraqloggerheads in their formidable shellswere yet far off shore, so she touchedinstead six silver turtles pinned to her vest,gesture to totems of spiritual safety.On the eve of the war in Iraqshe was reminded that she is:human, she has no shell –only the simulacrum of the warriors’so-called shells that were put to useon the morning of the war in Iraq.Karla Linn Merrifield’s poetry has appeared publications such as CALYX, Earth’s Daughters, Poetica, The Kerf, Negative Capability, Paper Street and Blueline; on line in New Works Review, The Centrifugal Eye and Elegant Thorn Review, and...

SAVING MOTHER EARTH
2008-04-29 11:44:00
by Mary SaracinoA single day in April isn’t enoughto honor our Mother , save the planetthat is her body, restore her ocean womb,revitalize the atrophied arms and legsof her continents, remove the smogfrom her pristine lungs, replenish all that’sdepleted by the lust for profitover prosperity. Human hearts so greedyfor commerce they call deforestation progress,think cloning is a medical advancement,see artificial life as the wave of the future,as if civilization can only advanceby killing or dismemberment,by acquisition or annihilation.How to survive a world of paper or plastic,hybrid or gas-guzzler,genetically altered seeds,cloned cows, chemical poisons in the water,run-off from the mouths of politicianswho think global warming is good for business.What’s to be gained whenglobalization soils our souls,breeds a false sense of interconnection,feigns compassion predicated oncorporate exploitation, skimming moneyoff the backs of underpaid workers,trafficking in human life, in weapo...
More About: Earth , Saving , Mother Earth